LIFE STORIES AS SOCIAL MESSAGES
Summary of a Doctoral Thesis
1. The innovative aspects of the thesis
The aim of this doctoral thesis is to analyse life stories as social messages, making use of
the biographic approach that is used in the social sciences. At the centre of the doctoral research
are life stories and life histories that were recorded during biographic interviews. These are socalled personal documents, including autobiographical information, oral reports, diaries, letters
and family genealogies. During the research, the author studied the communications norms, the
linguistic and cultural resources and the social ideas on the basis of which older people shape
stories about their lives during the course of biographic interviews. The author has made use of
materials that were found by the National Oral History Project in 1996 during the expedition
"Life Stories in Latvia 96",
This doctoral thesis is an investment in biographic sociology and in the development of
qualitative research methods. It expands the range of empirical research in the area of
biographical studies in Latvia in several respects. First of all, the theoretical part of the
dissertation offers the most extensive description of theoretical and methodological solutions that
has ever been developed in Latvia in terms of an analytical description of a performative
approach to the analysis of narratives. Second, the author has used and evaluated the
performative approach to the analysis of narratives, as well as the concept of the variety of social
ideas and cultural resources in life stories. Third, the author has analysed a number of aspects of
the way in which experiences are reported - the elaboration of life stories in the communications
process, the application of language and cultural resources in the verbalisation of experience, as
well as links between social context and the content of life stories. Fourth, this thesis represents
an expansion in the range of studies of life stories, analysing materials that had not been
researched before - biographic interviews with older residents of the cultural and historical
region of Latvia that is called Zemgale.
Life stories exist in language, and the issue of language is one of the most important
matters when studying life stories. In this doctoral research, the conclusions that have been
developed provide an investment in the study of the literary Latvian conversational language and
expand the understanding of strategies whereby spoken stories can be organised. The greatest
attention toward the strategy of structuring stories in the Latvian language has been devoted by
Vieda Skultane, who has concentrated on the use of literary strategies (Skultans, 1998). The
author of this dissertation, however, began with an approach toward life stories th at is
fundamentally different from Skultāne's approach, analysing life stories as texts that are
alongside other texts. In the doctoral research, the author used an approach in which the centre of
analysis was the way in which stories emerged in a spoken situation, devoting particular
attention to the use of linguistic repertoire and to performative competence which structures oral
communications and the practice of transferring experience.
The life stories of older people are an important, interesting and difficult source of
information for biographical research, and that is true for several reasons. The 20 th century was a
period of extremely dynamic and complicated changes in the history of Latvia. Some older
people have experienced all of the most important events of the 20 century in Latvia - World
War L the establishment and existence of the first independent Republic of Latvia, World War II,
the Soviet occupation and the restoration of the independent Latvian state. They have had to live
under the changes that occurred in relation to these events. The evidence that is provided by the
story tellers reveal previously unknown details in relation to well known events, allowing us to
view the development of historical events through the prism of human experience and everyday
activity. Life stories present a unique look at the history of everyday life - something that has not
been studied to any great extent so far. They allow us to analyse the way in which social forms
developed in life, demonstrating the way in which people adapted to the crass changes which
took place during the 20* century.
Life stories, like any story about history, represent a present-day interpretation of events
from the past. They show that when taken together, the past and the present form a story that is
told (Berks (Burke), 1998). An analysis of the life stories of older residents of Latvia allows us
to focus not only on distant events which are being brought to life in the present day, but also on
the ideas which exist in present-day society when it comes to our recent past. Even more - a
study of biographic interviews helps us to find out the way in which various cultural norms and
resources are used in constructing individual stories of life experience (Tisenkopfs, 1993). The
story tellers include various events from their lives in a single story, making use of a fairly
significant variety of social ideas and culture-based models, finding support from literary genres
or oral folklore, as well as from dominant historical narratives or local stories. When older
people tell their stories, one finds linguistic and cultural resources that were used in the early and
middle part of the 20th century, which means that there are various approaches toward telling a
story about one's own experience. The social ideas, cultural models and linguistic resources lhat
exist in society are being used in the 20 century, moreover, and that allows us to observe and
evaluate changes in language and in the way in which experiences are arranged and transferred
further over the course of a longer period of time.
It was decided to use the life stories of older residents of Latvia in part because of the
author's work with the National Oral History Project
2. The theoretical and methodological aspects of the doctoral research
The doctoral research has been conducted under the framework of the biographic approach
which exists in the social sciences. This is a form of collecting information through life stories,
life histories, family genealogies and other personal documents (Tisenkopfs, 1993). In the
biographic approach, an individual is seen as a unique reality which exists in a changing and
complex netwoik of social relations. At the centre of this network are the relationships between
a person's life history and the history of his or her society (Miller, 2000). In the dissertation, the
author analyses life stories and histories that were extracted through biographic interviews. The
life stories represent freely chosen descriptions of the tellers' lives. Some are carefiilly arranged
and sequential biographic tales, others are collections of fragments related to human experience.
Life histories represent stories that are the result of structured biographic interviews, reflecting
the chronology of life events. The concepts of "life stories" and "experience st ories" are
sometimes used as synonyms, taking into account the tendency to find unified terms for
describing oral autobiographical messages (Linde, 1993, Langness and Frank, 1981).
There are many different theoretical approaches toward biographical research in the present
day, and some of these directions have emerged independently from one another. The thing that
they all have in common is that they are all based on an analysis of biographies (Miller, 2000). In
the theoretical section of the dissertation, the author has discussed the various theoretical
differences that exist in the biographical approach, which has makes it possible to discuss
differences among various approaches, thus more precisely defining the theoretical directions of
the doctoral research. The author has used the performative approach to narrative analysis in her
own work.
hi the narrative analysis, the story is the main subject of research. The process of shaping
meaning is analysed, devoting attention to complicated sets of linguistic and social rules which
structure and manage the discussion between the interviewer and the teller (Riesmann, 1993).
Life stories are seen as narrative constructions in which relations between life and its
representation in the story are based on memory, consciousness, language, the situation of
communication, the rules for communication, experiences with other stories and knowledge
about social processes in society. It has to be noted that the narrative analysis is not a set of
unified theoretical assumptions. There are several different directions. At one end is an approach
which views stories as relations among texts, while at the other end is one which sees them as
relations among individuals (Riesmann, 1993).
The author of the dissertation has adapted the narrative analysis to her specific needs,
basing the work on the concept which the distinguished folklorist Richard Bauman has
developed in terms of performatively centred oral literature (Bauman, 1986), as well as on the
concept of the sociologist Charles Briggs concerning the interview as a communicative event
(Briggs, 1986). Bauman's performance theory says that attention is focused not only on the
communicative process during the course of which the life story emerges, but also on the story
itself, because in the story, experience is expressed through language; also of importance are the
events which are described in the story (Bauman, 1986). According to Briggs, biographic
interviews are seen as communicative events in which the interpretation of experience is formed
jointly by the interviewer and the interviewee in accordance with specific communications rules,
social roles and goals. Interaction and context determine that which the researcher will find out
during the course of the interview (Briggs, 1986). Thus, at the centre of the theoretical view are
the relations between the story and the situation in which the story is told, between the story and
language, between the story and the life events.
The author has also made use of a concept from the world's leading specialist in the area of
narrative analysis, Mark Freeman, with respect to the multi-voice nature of stories (Freeman,
2002). The aim has been to reach the goals of the doctoral research - understanding life stories as
social messages and evaluating the variety of social ideas and cultural resources that provide
support in the stories which relate to people's experience. Freeman has recognised that
autobiographies do more than just represent someone's life from birth to a certain point in the
present. Stories always include experiences that are rooted in family life, in communities, cities
and nations - in other words, in the world in which the individual lives. When people try to
explain Iheir life experience through a story, they consciously or unconsciously seek safe support
in stable forms of genre - either in written sources or in oral culture (Tonkin, 1992). What's
more, people not only borrow ways of arranging their stories from culture so that they can
express their individual lives, they also select life events for inclusion in individual stories in a
way which is in concert with subjects that dominate in the relevant culture. Thus,
autobiographies speak not only to an individual's experience, but also the social world in which
the specific life has taken place (Freeman, 2002).
The performative approach to narrative analysis provides a model for a theoretical view,
but the methodology of the analysis is based on the narrative analysis method that has been
proposed by the sociologists K.K. Riessman and R. L. Miller (Riessman, 1993, Miller, 2000). In
the analysis of biographic interviews, the author has used the inductive method, moving from
texts to theories and constantly looking for explanations as to why the story teller has, in the
dialogue with the interviewer, developed the story in one precise way and not another.
First of all, the author looks at the situation in which the story is told and at the context
through which it was created. Biographic interviews are analysed as communicative events.
Attention is devoted to: (1) the communications rules that are observed by the story teller, (2) the
roles, motivations, co-operation and relationships among those people who take part in the
conversation; (3) the context of the biographic interview.
Second, biographic interviews are analysed as oral texts, focusing on Ihe language of the
story - the forms of expression, the linguistic techniques and the narrative models that are used
by tellers to express their experience. When life stories are analysed as oral texts, attention is
focused on: (1) the linguistic repertoire that makes up the small units of the story; and (2) the
narrative models which bring together separate stories into a story about the teller's life.
Third, the author also analyse the interpretation of the past in biographic interviews,
focusing on the subjects that are being discussed and the way in which those subjects are
arranged. Focus is devoted to events that shape the life stories: (1) seeking out the subjects that
appear in most of the stories; (2) paying attention to things that are not said; (3) analysing links
between stories of personal experience and the models which dominated in the 1990s in terms of
public interpretations of the past.
3. A summary of the results of the research
During the course of the doctoral research, the author analysed 39 biographic interviews
with 43 people of the older generation," as recorded during an expedition "Life Stories in Latvia
96" that was conducted by the National Oral History Project (NOH). People were visited in the
area of Vadakste in the Latvian region of Zemgale. The author of the dissertation participated in
the recording of 11 biographic interviews. Each interview took an average of 1.5 to 2 hours (98
recorded hours in all). Summaries were prepared of all of the life stories - 240 pages of text in
all. In the case of fee 10 life stories that were the most extensive, detailed and rich in language,
full transcripts were prepared. In the case of three other stories, certain fragments were
transcribed (some 300 pages of text in all).
The results that were extracted from the analysis of the biographic interviews are important
for several reasons: (1) they allow tile reader to gain a sense of the expedition "Life Stories in
Because of a lack of experience, the organisers of the project did not consistently observe the principle that if the
stories of two tellers were recorded on a single cassette, both tellers signed the same agreement, and both tellers
participated in one and the same interview, then each of the tellers should be registered separately. That is why
there is the difference between the number of interviews and the number of interviewees. During subsequent
expeditions, this was no longer the case.
Latvia 1996"; (2) they analyse biographic interviews as communicate events; (3) they analyse
life stories as oral texts; (4) they analyse links between social context and the interpretations of
the past in the stories that were told.
3.1. A review of the "Life Stories in Latvia 96" expedition
The interview strategy during this expedition was to propose a story and then let the teller
select the subjects and events which he or she wished to discuss. The length of the recorded life
stories was determined bom by the teller's willingness and ability to tell the story and by the fact
that the interviewers wished to record as many life stories as possible. Of 39 interviews, only a
few are recorded on more than 1.5 or two cassettes - in those cases the tellers wanted to engage
in a longer conversation, and the interviewers visited that person more than once. Even Hie
longest recordings, however, represent only fragments of a specific life or experience. By
comparison, the longest life story recordings of the National Oral History project involve stories
that last for 10 or even 15 hours. In those cases, tellers really did provide an exhaustive
description of their lives, sometimes telling one and the same episodic story more than once. As
has been noted, however, both by the oral historian Alessandro Portelli and by the sociologist
Robert L. Miller, it is impossible to record a full and perfect life story, and the length of the
recording is not always of decisive importance (Portelli, 1998, Miller, 2000).
The biographic interviews that were recorded during the expedition resemble a mosaic. In
terms of subject, the stories are very different. Some people talked more about their youth,
others focused on the family, still others spoke about work. Some discussed the war, the
deportations and the concentration camps. Someone else produced a story that was rife with
elements from contemporary folklore. The recorded materials are extremely interesting, but they
cast bright light only on specific aspects of the lives and personalities of the p eople who were
interviewed. The people and their lives remain hard to see. This means that much more serious
discussions can be held about the cultural models mat are important in the common social arena
that about the tellers, their deep sense of the world and their wealth of life experience. The great
variety of experiences offered up extensive materials that can lead to further directions for
research and can serve as a foundation for new, more highly structured interviews.
When the biographic interviews were analysed, links were found between the nature of the
recorded materials, the methodological direction of the expedition and the broader social context
in Latvia in the 1990s. Materials from the NOH archive, including those from the 1996
expedition, tell us that many older people told their stories as evidence about important events in
the history of Latvia, and they were to a considerable extent motivated by the fact that they were
eyewitnesses to those events. The relationship between individual stories and the regeneration
and emergence of social memory processes in society appeared through the subjects that were
covered (life in Latvia before 1940, the resistance movement, Soviet deportations, imprisonment,
passive forms of resistance, the difficulty of life on collective farms), as well as through
references that were made to such important aspects of social memory as holiday celebrations,
cultural and historical factors, etc. It has to be said, however, that not only the tellers, but also
the NOH project participants and project interviewers were not free of or distanced from the
important need which existed in the 1990s for the emergence of a truer version of history or from
the belief that the truer version of history is stored in individual memories.
3.2. A review of the biographic interviews as communicative events
One of the goals in the doctoral research was to determine the communications rules that
were used by the tellers and the interviewers and to evaluate the influence of the social situation
on the way in which life experiences were discussed during the biographic interviews. At the
beginning of the process of analysis, the author was surprised by the different responses which
tellers gave when interviewers suggested that the life story be told. Some were perfectly happy to
talk, others wanted to be interviewed, still others simply wanted to chat about life. The different
nature of the biographic interviews led to a search for an understanding of why the recorded
materials were so highly varied, even though the conditions which were supposed to be observed
were quite similar.
All of the interviews that were used for the research were based on the approach of a life
story interview, but when interviewers suggested Uiat tellers tell their life story, the response
differed. Some of the autobiographic stories that are analysed in the doctoral study are life stories
- a free biographic interview in which the subjects and their structure are selected by the teller. In
other cases, we are dealing with life histories, which are partly structured biographic interviews
in which the response from the teller follows a question from the interviewer. In most of the
biographic interviews, we find both freely chosen stories by the teller and conversations that are
led by the interviewer. Three of the interviewees chose to observe the rules for a conversation they avoided shaping a story and answering questions, but they were happy to discuss various
aspects of history and everyday life, reproducing public viewpoints and stereotypes, reporting
local rumours, etc.
The analysis of the biographic interviews also revealed several conditions for
communications that are described in the literature as local communications habits (Briggs,
1986, Jackson, 1987). Note was taken of specific habits mat are typical of the space for mutual
communications in Latvia - 1) rales concerning the expression of emotion and 2) pauses as a
traditional technique in communications. In the autobiographic stories, emotions were never
really put on the table in the story or in the questions which were posed by the interviewers. This
distinct suppression of emotion on the part of the tellers and the interviewers suggests that in
Latvia (at least among older people) rules concerning the manifestation of emotion do not permit
emotion to be shared with strangers. Emotions are an intimate experience, and any laying bare of
this experience during a social event such as a biographic interview was unacceptable to the
interviewer and the teller alike.
Analysis of the ability of the interviewer to manage a conversation about life with tellers
who were not particularly voluble revealed another communications rule that was observed by
most of the older tellers - the use of pauses and silence as a traditional technique for
communication. The silence, which was formed by shorter or longer pauses, represented an area
of understanding between the teller and the interviewer, allowing the teller to grow accustomed
to the interview situation, expressing the life rhythm and world view of older people in the
countryside, as well as serving as a means for emphasising what had just been said. Those
interviewers who were able to adapt to these communications habits and to take the slow rhythm
of speech and the pauses in step recorded more successful interviews than did those who lacked
such skills.
During the doctoral research it was also found that among older rural residents, social
norms and speech habits that were observed had a great effect on the form and content of the life
stories. It is important to understand the influence which speech rules and habits have on the
depiction of experiences and life stories when it comes to the methodology of qualitative
research, and this can cause one to have a somewhat more critical view of interviews as a source
of information.
During the analysis of the biographic interviews, attention was also focused on the
situational aspects of the interviews. The author looked at the skills of the interviewers in terms
of explaining the goals of the interviews, in establishing and maintaining co-operation and in
leading the interviews. It was found that these skills had much to do with the form and content
of the interviews. The importance of the situation was also confirmed by the presence of other
participants in the interview. In some cases, the relationship between married people was very
clear. When the relationship between two married people was good, the interview benefited from
the presence of the spouse. If there were problems in the marriage, however, the presence of the
spouse caused the interviewee to stop telling a story or to change it. The presence of the local
organisers of the expedition was also of influence. These were people who were familiar with the
biography and story-telling repertoire of the teller, and they could encourage the telling of
several stories that would not have been recorded otherwise. In some cases, however, the
presence of locals halted an interview feat had already been started, with the interviewee turning
to issues of regional interest. It was found that when tellers selected their subjects, the imagined
audience for the interview was also considered. The situation of an interview as such involves
the creation of materials that will later be used for research, publications, etc. The presence of a
wider audience can be felt as pressure related to the dominant model for interpreting history in
Latvia. In some cases stories were told from the very beginning as an eyewitness report of past
events for a broader audience, linking personal life events with events that were of importance to
public memory in Latvia in the mid-1990s. In some cases, this felt or imagined social pressure
kept people from talking about tilings that were evaluated negatively by the public at the time
when the interviews were conducted. Sometimes interviewees thought about the potential
audience for the interview only when the process was finished, and then agreement had to be
reached on limitations in using the materials - some people asked that their name not be
mentioned in publications, while others asked that the recorded interview not be given to the
local history museum.
3.3. A review of experience stories as oral texts
During Ihe doctoral research, the author analysed the life of the story in language - the
linguistic repertoire and the cultural resources that help in transforming individual experiences
into a story. Important issues in Latvia which had not been studied very much before include the
way in which stories emerge in conversational language, focusing attention to the way in which
individual units of the story are built up, as well as the narrative models which are used by older
tellers, particularly focusing on the way in which individual units of the story interlink in a
biographic interview.
It was found that only some of the interviewees could tell a good story about their lives.
Most of the interviewed people did not even try to do so. All the more, not everyone could tell
even brief stories about specific events in life. When the life stories were transcribed, the spoken
word had to be turned into written text, and fundamental differences were found between spoken
and written language. Life stories which sounded very interesting and exciting often were hard to
understand when set down on paper. There were other stories which seemed boring and
incomplete, but on paper they turned out to be informative life stories that were rife with
evaluations. The author posed the question of how a life story is "built up" in language. What
brings different narratives together into a harmonised structure of meaning during a single
biographic interview? Why are some stories successful and interesting, while others are not?
When the stories about life experiences were analysed, it was found that a wealth of
experienced events does not necessarily mean that there will be a good life story. After the
researcher listened to audio recordings of the biographic interviews several times, she found that
the ones which addressed her most directly were the ones in which the teller was something of an
actor. People of the older generation ensure that their stories are expressive to the point where
they are exciting both during the direct contact and when they are heard on tape later. They use
a dialogue-based link with the listener, they make use of the intonation of their voice, along with
non-verbal forms of expression and the traditions of the spoken word in Latvian culture (both in
traditional and in contemporary culture). After an analysis of the life stories, the author
confirmed her assumption that recorded stories are a spoken performance that is prepared by a
specific teller for a specific audience (Bauman, 1996, Tonkin, 1992). Of importance is a sense
of the language, the ability to govern the resources that are available in spoken expression - this
allows tellers to establish tiny units of the story which are then brought together into a life story
through their overall composition.
In analysing life stories as oral texts, the author found specific differences in the way in
which the different generations use language. There were differences in sentence structure and in
the resources of expression. Tellers who were born around 1920 or before usually took the
literary norms of conversational Latvian into account. They made use of the literary strategies
for the construction of a story to a greater extent than did those who had been bom in the 1930s
and later. Among older tellers, there were shorter sentences, old-fashioned words and formulae
of language that had been borrowed from folklore. There was also a skilful use of non -verbal
resources (expressive intonation, the rhythm and speed of speech, pauses and emphases) which
reminded one of links to traditional spoken culture. Tellers who had been born in the 1930s and
later used other language techniques in expressing their experiences in life. Along with elements
from traditional spoken culture (language formulae, expressions, sayings), researcher also heard
elements of modem spoken culture (e.g., the professional lexicon).
The next fundamental issue to be analysed in the dissertation is the way in which older
people in Latvia arrange their stories, using several episodes to prepare a tale about their lives.
The issue of which models are used to structure stories is a complicated one. Theories about the
analysis of narrative do not all agree on this matter, and it is also true that biographic interviews
are complicated in their structure. Various types of establishing authorship overlap in biographic
interviews, there are various kinds of representing time, in selecting events and in expressing
oneself. In the doctoral research, the author analysed the narrative models in the stories and
focused on techniques that were used to reflect the events of life - the way in which
autobiographical memory brings together events that are distant in time and space and forms one
story out of them, thus linking events from the past as the teller sees fit.
During the analysis of the life stories, the author found the linear model and the
fragmentary model as the dominant narrative models, which allowed people to merge various
episodes into a single life story. It was found that only one of the stories that was recorded
during the expedition was a linear and sequential story which included a line of development.
Many of the stories, or at least the narratives in autobiographical stories, involve a linear and
sequential report of life events, but without a development line. There were severa l life stories
that were constructed in a distinctly fragmentary way, and the way in which these stories were
told and the language that was used indicated the high linguistic and performative competence of
the teller. It was also found that older people, in most cases, found it easier to present a
harmonised life story than did those who were born after 1930.
In order to get a more complete sense of the narrative models that are used by ethnic
Latvians and other residents of Latvia, the autobiographical evidence that was heard during the
expedition was compared to the life stories of Latvians who live in other countries. In Sweden,
for instance, it was found that local Latvians produced narratives that were chronological and
sequential in nature, and included a line of development. That is the narrative model that
dominates in Sweden. There is reason to think, however, that the interviewing process had much
to do with the structure of these stories. When an interviewer came from Latvia, people tried to
tell as orderly a story as possible, one that represented the ideologies and values of emigre life.
It was found that several of the stories that were recorded during the "Life Stories in Latvia 96"
expedition were more reminiscent of the stories that were told by residents of the village of
Babrauka to the anthropologist R. Ķīlis - stories which do not involve the line of life which
weaves through the tales and includes a sequential and developmental depiction of life
experiences. Ķīlis found that in the village, people of various ethnic groups described their lives
both similarly to and differently from city residents and Latvians who had been deported (Ķīlis,
2002). In the village of Vadakste and its surroundings, too, recorded biographic interviews
represented a similar situation - people of various nationalities shaped their life stories on the
basis of the same principles.
3.4. A review of the interpretation of the past in life stories
One of the goals in the doctoral research was to seek links between social context and the
representation of life experiences. The analysis of the biographic interviews allowed the
researcher to identify links between the social context in which the expedition took place and the
form and content oft(he life stories that were recorded. The aim of the National Oral History
project is to document the living history of the Latvian people, and the idea arose because of (he
attitudes which dominated in Latvia in the 1990s vis-a-vis the importance of the recent past and
the need to restore social memory. The responsiveness of the people who were interviewed and
the subjects which dominated (he stories showed that the authors of the life stories were largely
influenced by the public need to rewrite the 20 th century history of Latvia in accordance with the
restored independence of the country.
An analysis of the subjects that were covered in the biographic interviews made it clear that
childhood memories were less important man various dramatic or instructive life events which
ended up at the centre of the tales. Events from childhood and adolescence were often very
personal in nature, sometimes they were taken from the repertoire of family stories, but in most
cases they simply told us about life and work in Latvia in the 1920s and 1930s. Everyday life
was calm and orderly, people worked hard and had plans for the future, and this contrasted
sharply with the violent and unexpected things mat occurred as a result of the Soviet occupation
and World War II. The latter group of stories told about the war, about the difficult period after
the war or about the repressions of me Soviet authorities against the local people. Despite the
variety of individual events and the differences in the way in which those events were reported,
nearly all of the stories involved a link with the emergence of social memory. In the context of
this it was important to renew links with the first period of Latvia's independence, to find
evidence of the years that were spent under totalitarianism, and to seek out the negative effect
which the Soviet occupation had on people's lives. The researcher found that some interviewees
silenced some events in their stories, revealing social pressure in the development of the tales.
This applied to people's involvement in the ideological organisations of the Soviet Union and to
any positive aspects to the everyday life of Soviet citizens.
During analysis of the biographic interviews it was also found mat a key subject in each
and every story was the perception and reflection of social changes. An analysis of the events
mat were reported in the stories found mat the main thing in all of mem was a strategy for life,
one which represented people's efforts to maintain control over their own lives - first by using a
strategy of adaptation to make peace with the new circumstances, but second by maintaining a
strategy of upholding continuity so as to preserve the accustomed way of life and values (the
national ideology and Christian traditions) as long as possible.
Analysis of the reporting of memories led to the conclusion mat important adaptation
strategies were based on the need among people to adjust their lives in the context of Soviet
authority. This first and foremost related to the satisfaction of elementary needs. People had to
find ways of providing food, clothing and accommodation for their families after the great
damages that were inflicted during the war. The economy of the Soviet Union was in shambles
and lots of goods were missing. Second, there was the need for safety. People adopted the tactic
of keeping quiet and "forgetting" those subjects, views and traditions which were a part of
ideology and religion in independent Latvia. More active strategies aimed at securing one's own
safety can be identified among those who became actively involved in the ideological and
political organisations of the day.
It was found that the most important strategies in upholding continuity were related to the
need to preserve the previous models of life and thought as long as possible. It was fo und that
there were many different continuity strategies - ones which had to do with maintaining one's
identity (preservation of one's work ethics, for instance), strategies of refusing to become
involved (stepping aside from political events, refusing to join in Soviet organisations), and
strategies of continuing to observe the traditions of the church. Active opposition (involvement
in underground movements or the national partisan movement) was found less frequently.
Events which emphasised continuity in a biographic interview helped to depict the tellers as
people who did not change their beliefs and views just because the political system changed. It
was found that the authors of the stories often confirmed the continuity models which they
applied to their thinking and their actions as often as they could while telling the story. They did
not accept the idea that human personalities and viewpoints can shift radically over the course of
a lifetime. Several of the interviewed people were critical about others who had changed their
views.
In nearly every interview, people also expressed their ideas about the situation of the
present. Most of the tellers were critical, because the expectations of the late 1980s and early
1990s did not coincide with the realities of 1996. People spoke of unemployment, poverty,
higher prices, deteriorating infrastructure and the disappearance of cultural life. Old people
stressed their low pensions and the difficulties which their children were facing in adapting to the
new market economy principles in agriculture. The biographic interviews were reminiscent of
something which the philosopher Maija Kule had noted in an analysis of the situation in the mid1990s - the desire to repeat the achievements of the first period of independence without taking
into account the fact that the world had changed substantially in the subsequent 50 years (Rule,
1996). It was also found that the narrative self-image of the story tellers and the events of the
past that were selected for reporting were chosen in line with the ideology of independence.
4. Major conclusions
The major conclusions emanate from the analysis of life stories as social messages which
was conducted during the doctoral research, and they can be divided up into two groups:
1) Those that have to do with the academic contribution which the dissertation will make
in the development of theories in the area of biographic sociology in Latvia;
2)
Those that have to do with the investment that the dissertation is making in the
development of methodologies.
4.1. Major conclusions about the use of the performative approach to
analysis of narratives during the doctoral research
The analysis of life stories during this doctoral study served to strengthen the theories
which were the cornerstone for the research. The performative approach to the analysis of
narratives was successfull. The concepts of Bauman (1986) and the theoretical views of Briggs
(1986) were brought together into this doctoral study, making it possible to analyse stories about
life experiences as complicated and socially constructed versions of the past of individuals. If
the interview is seen as a communicative event, that provides us with a model for analysing the
social aspects of the way in which stories about experiences emerge during a biographic
interview. If we see life stories as spoken texts, then we can analyse the linguistic repertoire and
the narrative models in the expression of individual life experiences. When we look at the events
that are depicted in the stories as social and narrative constructs, we can analyse the way in
which social ideas and contexts influence the way in which life stories are depicted.
4.1.1. Conclusions about life stories as communicative events
Analysis of stories about life experiences that was conducted during the doctoral research
firmed up the assumption that biographic interviews are a special communicative event with
specific rules and social roles that have to be taken into account by those who are involved in the
process (Briggs, 1986, Kopijn, 1998). It was found that interviewees shaped dialogue with
interviewers in line with three different communications rules - those which apply to interviews
about life stories, those which apply to interviews about life histories, and those which apply in
the context of friendly conversation.
The analysis of life stories was conducted on the basis of the assumption that a biographic
interview represents a dialogue between the teller and the interviewer and that the form and
content of the process is fairly situational (Briggs, 1986, Bauman, 1986, Gale-Karpentere, 2001).
Analysis of the communicative situation demonstrated that the form and content of recorded life
stories were influenced by the broader social context (the role of memories in Latvia of the
1990s, ideas about the importance of personal evidence in the shaping of a truer version of
Latvia's history) and by the situational context of the interview (the ability of the interviewers to
explain the goals of the interview, the ability to form and maintain co-operation with the teller,
the motivation of the teller, the influence of others who were present on the interview, etc.).
It was also concluded that the form and content of the interviews were influenced by
communications norms and habits which exist in society. An important and socially determined
aspect of biographic interviews with older people in Latvia, as determined during the doctoral
research, was emotionality and the expression of emotions in relation to social norms. This had
a key influence on the pace of stories during the interviews and on the form and content of the
interviews. Another noticeable communications factor in interviews with older people in the
countryside was the use of shorter or longer pauses. This served as a field of understanding
between the teller and the interviewer. Interviewees could become accustomed to the situation
of the interview. The rhythm of life and sense of the world among older people was revealed,
and the pauses also served as a form of expression - one that emphasised the importance of what
had been said or helped in shaping the language rhythm of the story.
Analysis of the empirical materials that were analysed during the doctoral study confirm
the view that life stories that are recorded during biographic interviews represent constructs in
reference to an individual's life events that are shaped by a specific communicative situation and
that are substantially influenced by communications norms and regulations which prevail in
society and by the context in which the interview took place.
4.1.2. Conclusions about life stories as oral texts
Analysis of the oral texts strengthen the concept that life stories are oral performances in
which of decisive importance, first and foremost, is the performative and linguistic competence
of the teller. Second, when people talk about their life experiences, they consciously or
unconsciously make use of forms of expression and of language repertoire that have already
been stabilised (Bauman, 1986, Tonkin, 1992, Freeman, 2002).
It was found that in those cases when the interviewee wished to tell a story but lacked the
performative and linguistic competence to do so, as well as in those cases when people wanted to
observe the rules of the interview, life stories did not really emerge - life histories were recorded
instead. Only when a desire to talk coincided with an ability to talk could life stories be recorded.
Analysis of the biographic interviews led to the conclusion that of decisive importance are a
sense of the language and an ability to make use of the resources for oral expression - resources
which allow tellers to bring various episodes into an overall composition, to create a foil story
from individual experiences in life.
The author concluded that exciting stories were formed from just a few life events by those
tellers who were familiar with the forms of expression of language, who used the intonations of
speech and the various non-verbal forms of expression which are available. Those tellers with
inadequate linguistic competence and poor performative skills, for their part, could not tell a
story even when their memories and their knowledge of facts were at a good level.
The doctoral research led to the conclusion that older tellers from various nationalities in
Latvia mostly used two narrative models in structuring their experiences - the linear and the
fragmentary model. These models differ from those that have been found in other studies of
biographic sociology and anthropology in Europe. For instance, Brockmeier has made note of
development narratives (Brockmeier, 2000), that was found in stories of Sweden Latvians by the
author of doctoral research. These differ also from the models in Latvia that are used by people
of various generations, as well as by participants in various groups in society. For instance, many
of young people and activists in the European Movement use victorious narratives in structuring
their experience (Linnet, 2003).
In her dissertation, the author analyses the narrative models that were used by tellers in
forming the stories about their experience in line with Brockmeier's concept that six different
narrative models dominate in the Western societies and they cover the normative view of culture
and the way in which experiences are structured and evaluated - the linear, the circular, the
cyclical, the spiral, the static and the fragmentary model (Brockmeier, 2000). The first four of
these can be seen as development narratives.
The biographic interviews that were analysed in the doctoral study make it clear that in
many of the stories or at least a significant share of the narratives involved linear stories in which
a line of development and purposefulness could not (except in one instance) be found, even
though this fact does not exclude the fact of dynamic lives.
Several tellers did use the fragmentary model for telling their stories, but this happened for
reasons that are substantially different from those that are described by Brockmeier. He links the
fragmentary narrative model with younger and more educated people, those who purposefully
construct their life stories in terms of the co-existence of different and contradictory lines in life
development, without any overall and targeted direction. Skultane has also made note of the
fragmentary structure of stories in Latvia. She explains mis first and foremost through the
influence of education. Skultāne stresses that after 1945, literary traditions and all textual parts
of public thinking were deconstructed. The generation that was educated during Soviet years
could no longer find support in literary strategies that are learned during one's school years, and
that is why it is hard for them to develop logical and sequential stories about their lives. Skultane
has also argued that people find it difficult or impossible to develop harmonic life stories about
the Soviet period, because there were major discrepancies between those values that were
officially recognised and those that were important to individuals, between the desired and the
possible model of life, and between official narratives and personal experience (Skultans, 1998).
The author of this dissertation, meanwhile, has determined that there may be other
explanations for the fragmentary nature of life stories from Latvia's older residents. First of all,
this model can be linked to the culture of communications in Soviet times, when hints, sub-texts
and decisions to keep quiet about some tilings were of fundamental importance in mutual
communications. Second, the restoration of Latvia's independence forced people to re-evaluate
their life structure and to seek new interpretations of personal events from the past. This means
that the fragmentary approach to story telling can be seen as a successiiil model which helps
tellers to avoid the presentation of contradictory life events and experiences in a single story.
Without questioning the idea that Latvia is in the Western geographic space, the author
must conclude that the claim that there are six dominant models in story telling which can be
applied to the entire (conditional) geographic space of the West must be questioned. One must
agree with the critique from Minami, which says that the six narrative models that are proposed
by Brockmeier can help in interpreting and understanding stories, but in the real world the
construct of spoken narratives is far more complicated and varied, because it is based in political,
ethnic, religious, gender, generational and many other differences among the various groups
which exist in society (Minami, 2000).
The doctoral study indicates that further research into the models that are used when people
structure stories is a very promising but also very complicated field of study in terms of overall
theories about the analysis of narratives and in terms of studying stories that are told in Latvia.
In the future, specialists should pay attention to the way in which differences in generations,
social groups, eihnic groups and geographic location can affect the way in which stories are told.
That would allow specialists to gain a fundamental understanding of the techniques that are used
by different groups of people in Latvia to identify themselves - techniques that are rooted in
society and culture. Specialists would identify the kinds of cultural resources and language
repertoire that are used and the social ideas which are the basis of one's self-image in talking
about one's life.
Analysis of the life stories that were viewed as oral texts strengthens the assumption that
autobiographic narratives have a dual nature - they represent a subjective arrangement of
individual events, but their narrative actualisation is possible only if there is a common range of
linguistic and cultural references (Vēvere, 2002).
4.1.3 Conclusions about life stories as messages about the past
The analysis of biographic interviews that was conducted during the doctoral research
supported the idea lhat stories about life experiences are social constructs and that people depict
their past in accordance with the models for interpreting the past which dominate in the society
in which they live (Andrews, 2002). Just as history represents the recording of those events that
are of the greatest importance in terms of public thinking, so individual life histories depict
socially important events which relate to the participation of individuals in social groups (Berks,
1998, Ķīlis, 1998).
Analysis of the stories that were told allow the author to conclude that as an event, the
expedition was largely affected by the change in comprehension of the meaning of history and
the past which occurred during the 1990s in Latvia. This could be seen in the actions of the
interviewers and in the evidence that was presented by the tellers. This was a period in which
people experienced radical change. The new life order for society required new guidelines
which many people sought to find in the past through the process of memories. Life stories in
Latvia at that time served several important social functions - they mobilised ethnic selfunderstanding and helped in the establishment of new individual and collective identities
(Tisenkopfs, 1993). Memories established links with the first period of Latvian independence
(1918-1940) and provided evidence about the years when people lived under the tota litarian
regime. In the life stories that were recorded during the expedition, events from the past were
selected in accordance with events that are seen as important in public memory, those which
were actualised only during the third national renaissance. Most people talked about life and
work in the 1920s and 1930s. When they spoke of the Soviet era, they mostly emphasised the
negative influence which Soviet rule had on people's lives. They spoke of efforts by individuals
to preserve control over their own lives by adapting or by opposing the existing order. Author
found that tellers did not speak of certain issues, and that also indicated that social pressure
affected the way in which stories were structured. Most of the biographic interviews also
involved an evaluation of the situation in the present In nearly all of the interviews, the changes
mat had occurred in Latvia since the restoration of independence were evaluated negatively, and
that indicates feat social expectations have not coincided with social realities. At the same time,
however, when the present is criticised, the self-image in life stories is shaped in line with the
ideology of restored independence. Tellers were most sensitive about the presentation of their
experience in a story that would be acceptable to the public. They wanted to structure a positive
and commendable story about their lives. Conclusions from this analysis allow the author to
agree with the claim that public representations of the past can both support and threaten
individuals, strengthening their identity or denying the importance of that identity (Tonkin,
1992).
A comparative analysis of the stories that were told confirmed the idea that social context
influences the way in which events from the past are selected and interpreted in a biographic
interview. It was found that in most of the life stories that were recorded during the expedition
in 1996 contained distinctly politicised statements which contrasted the peaceful and orderly life
which existed in Latvia before 1940 to the chaotic and violent events which occurred later. In
the biographic interviews that were recorded during an expedition in 2002, this contrast was no
longer as distinct. People made more extensive statements about life under Soviet rule, and
statements were not just tragic, not just comical but also, in some cases, distinctly positive. In
stories that were recorded outside of the expeditions, however, the dominant elements most often
were stories about childhood and adolescence, leaving other phases in life, as well as the political
aspects of life, in the background.
Stories about life experiences depict very different events from life, sometimes through just
one sentence, sometimes through a longer explication. The biographic interviews that were
recorded during the "Life Stories in Latvia 96" expedition did not contain detailed and allencompassing depictions of the lives of tellers. Rafter, they represented a mosaic -like
presentation of specific life events. One subject that was covered in each and every story, one
that demonstrated links between the various events of individual lives and the public
representation of those events in a biographic interview, was the way in which changes in society
were experienced and reflected. It was found that adaptation to new circumstances is always a
long-lasting process when changes occur, irrespective of whether the changes have been
expected and supported by the individual (as in the establishment and then re-establishment of
Latvia's independence in 1918 and 1991) or have been unexpected and violent (as in the case of
Soviet and Nazi occupations in 1940, 1941 and 1944). Whenever radical changes occur in a
society, there is a need to adapt to the new circumstances, but also to preserve continuity
(Arelaid-Tart, 2001). Analysis that was conducted for the purposes of this dissertation
demonstrates the strategies of adaptation that emerged in line with the need to satisfy elementary
life requirements and to ensure one's own security, as well as the many different strategies that
were used to uphold continuity - strategies for maintaining identity (e.g., preserving one's work
ethic), strategies aimed at standing apart and not becoming involved (ignoring political events,
refusing to become involved in Soviet organisations), the preservation of national and religious
traditions, as well as (less commonly) strategies of active opposition (involvement in
underground organisations or partisan movements).
In the mid-1990s, both society at large and each individual separately were involved in an
active process of establishing and restructuring their autobiographies. History cannot exist apart
from its interpretation, whether it is collective or individual history. Whenever there are radical
changes, there is also a need to reformulate collective and personal identity. The events which
people who were interviewed had experienced over their long lives were included in life stories,
mostly in a search for links to those subjects that were important in the Latvian public arena in
the mid-1990s.
4.2. Major conclusions about the concept that was used in the doctoral
research with respect to multiple voices in life stories
During the author's work on the dissertation, it proved quite complicated to analyse the
multi-voice and multiple meaning nature of narratives through the polyphony of the stories as
shaped by a combination of the teller, the teller's family and community, the texts of literature,
the traditions of oral text and the life events of the teller. "We create ourselves, we make use of
what is available to us" (Allan, 1993, quoted in Freeman, 2002). The authors of autobiographic
stories depicted themselves and their lives through a multiplicity of experiences, traditions and
repertoires that exist in the relevant society and that can be called multiple voices in an
individual message when seen in metaphorical terms.
The author focused on all three aspects of the way in which autobiographic stories are
structured - the situation under which communications took place, the text and the events that are
depicted. It must be said, however, that the consistent acceptance of the concept of multiple
voices must be viewed critically when extensive amounts of material must be analysed. Each
story includes more than one element, each story contains elements that are not repeated in other
life stories, but the fact is mat each of these elements can be linked not only to the unique nature
of the specific life, but is rooted also in the era, in the generation, in regional stories , in the
repertoire of language, in the texts of literature, etc. It proved difficult to determine the many
different social and cultural resources that could be identified in the analysis of 39 biographic
interviews. The analysis of stories about life experiences made it possible to focus only on those
social representations and aspects of socially important stories that were presented in more man
one story. In studying the life stories, the author defined various cultural resources and social
ideas that were used in structuring stories about life experiences. It has to be admitted, however,
that it proved impossible to define any theoretical view and explanation which would cover all of
the many aspects of these life stories.
The demand that the multiplicity of voices be observed in individual stories is more of a
theoretical challenge which indicates the need for further considerations in narrative analysis.
The concept of multiple voices suggests that the complex structure of stories be kept in mind and
encourages us to avoid any simplistic explanations. The concept could be applied successfully to
an all-encompassing and in-depth analysis of a single story, but in the analysis of a greater
number of narratives, it can be used mostly as a theoretical guideline, not as the fundamental
principle in analysis.
4.3. Major conclusions about methodology
Conclusions that were drawn from the analysis of the "Life Stories in Latvia 96" expedition
are methodologically important in the area of biographic research and in the context of the
fieldwork that was done under the auspices of the National Oral History Project
The dissertation presents an in-depth evaluation of the approach that was used in the "Life
Stories in Latvia 96" expedition - one which involved an effort to interview as many people as
possible through the mode of life story interviews. When it comes to biographic research, a
more traditional and more often used approach is the interviewing of people who have a good
memory and who are very skilled in telling stories. Interviewers visit the person again and again
until a broad and detailed life story - one that depicts the life of the teller as precisely as possible
- is in place (Miller, 2000, Thompson, 1988). The experiences which were assembled during the
expedition's fieldwork allow one to conclude that the strategy of interviewing as many people as
possible but devoting a limited amount of time to each teller had both advantages and
shortcomings in comparison to the more traditional approach.
Among the negative aspects in this process is the fact that most of the biographic
interviews were comparatively short (the average recording lasted two hours). This allowed
interviewers to reveal only a small and fragmentary part of each teller's biography. Analysi s of
the biographic interviews demonstrated that the materials contained various kinds of
information, and the heterogeneity of the events and subjects that were covered was quite
surprising. Still, it is possible to gain a more extensive understanding of the social ideas and
cultural resources that were at the basis of these stories about life experiences than it is to draw
conclusions about the actual lives of the tellers. There is good reason to revisit the best tellers in
future expeditions so as to obtain at least a few life stories that are as complete and detailed as
possible,
A positive factor, however, was the wide range of people who were interviewed. When as
many older people are interviewed as possible, that allows specialists to make note of the variety
of experiences and the various techniques which people in a single geographic region use to
depict the past. Some of the tellers did not talk very much, but their stories were recorded
anyway, and those stories contained valuable information, too. When lots of biographic
interviews are recorded in a single geographic region, that allows researchers to come up with
more concrete directions for future research and to find the very best tellers. Those local
residents who have good memories can be asked to grant repeated and more in-depth interviews.
During the research, the author of the dissertation also considered the involvement of
trained volunteers in the collection of oral history. The work of each interviewer was of key
importance in the quality of the materials that were collected. The participation of emigre
Latvians in the expedition helped. The volunteers made it possible to record a greater number of
interviews. There were important exchanges of experiences. The American Latvians who took
part in the biographic interview process were professional in their work (among them was the
historian Paulis Lazda, and a student of oral history, Mara Lazda). The stories that were
recorded reduced the gap between those people who lived under the Soviet occupation and those
who left Latvia during World War II. Participants in the expedition could visit Latvia not as
guests or contributors of financing, but as people who did practical work. The interviews
presented ideas about changes that took place under the Soviet occupation, and this helped to
change and supplement the ideas about Latvia that had emerged during the years of emigration.
An evaluation of the expedition and the methods that were used allowed the author to draw
conclusions that will be important when life stories are collected in the future. In terms of
methodology, it was determined feat interviews with people who are not very talkative or with
those who wished to observe the rules of life history interviews required more preparation on the
part of the interviewers. Those interviewers who were able to adapt to the communicative habits
of more elderly tellers and to make note of their slow rhythm of speech and their pauses recorded
more successful interviews than those who lacked such skills. When interviewers are trained in
the future, therefore, more attention must be devoted to explaining the way in which linguistic
and communicative competence and habits of speech affect the form and content of a life story
interview. If interviews with people who are not talkative or do not want to structure their own
life stories, but who are perfectly happy to be interviewed nonetheless, are to be more successful,
there must be a more careful approach to the strategic planning of the inter views. Free
interviews and structured interviews can be combined. Interviewers must learn about the tactics
of interviewing, and they must be allowed to practice their skills at life story and life history
interviews. The difference in quality among the bi ographic interviews that were recorded
confirmed the idea that interviewing is an art which improves only through practice and which
demands very serious work indeed (Gāle-Kārrpentere, 2001, Miller, 2000). Results of the
fieldwork made it clear that people have very different levels of skill in telling stories, and so
interviewers must be well prepared in terms of shifting from the intended life story interview
tactics to the tactics of a life history interview if the interviewee proves to be uncommunicative
or if the interviewee, for one reason or another, does not want to follow the rules of a life story
interview.
5. Postscript
Analysis of the stories that were told by elderly people in the Vadakste Parish and its
surroundings made it possible to review the way in which life experiences are produced in a
story. At the centre of the analysis was the story of experiences as an interpretation of life events
that was constructed during a conversation between two people - an interpretation which
emerged in a broader social context and through the situation in which the biographic interview
was conducted. The doctoral research allows the author to say that even though a life story is a
situational and fragile thing, the fact is that from the perspective of social information, it
presents, in a single image, a whole generation, the use of cultural resources and language, the
historical era and the geographic location. This allows others to study and understand the
historical and social circumstances which, without these communications, would remain the
individual experience of small groups or even individual people. By focusing both on individual
experience and on the social context and the involvement of language in the presentation of this
experience, we gain a more in-depth understanding of people, of their everyday lives, of their
social relations and ideologies and of the society at large.
hi writing the dissertation, the author made use of the approach of viewing stories as
communicative events and oral performances in the context of their creation. At the forefront of
the analysis were the social aspects of the stories about experience - the dominant models for
interpreting history and the involvement of linguistic and cultural resources in the representation
of personal experience. This dissertation studied the life stories of older people in the Latvian
region of Zemgale. Analysis of life stories from other generations, other social groups and other
parts of the country might made evident a different way in which stories are structured,
differences in the way in which language resources are used and different social representations
are present.
Life stories today are an important source of information in the social sciences and the
humanities. A biographic interview offers us an ability to learn about specific people in society
and about their lives over a longer period of time. Interviews help us to view society and its
history from the positions of subjectivity, and this can provide a guarantee that in terms of social
studies, the reality of the world is not replaced with a delicate, but artificial and abstract process
of theorising about human beings and their society.
At the same time, however, life stories, as social messages, far exceed the field of scientific
analysis alone. Life stories are unique examples of culture, and they can be actualised in other
contexts, they can take part in active cultural processes so as to become a bridge for mutual
understanding among individuals and to offer a deeper understanding of their society (Zirnīte,
2001:14). Each life story tells us something important about the existence of human beings in
the world, about human lives, which are so different for each of us, yet so similar in terms of the
basic issues of human existence. The lives of well known and more anonymous individuals,
thus, can serve as a source for discovery and thought. Each human life takes place in a certain
period of time, and thus it can never be set apart from history. Life stories are fragments of our
common history, and they can be of interest not only to sociologists, historians and
anthropologists, but to everyone who thinks about world in which we live. Life stories, like
history, use an understanding of the past to structure the experience of the present, and much of
what we accept as automatically understandable in the everyday can be seen as malleable and
historically conditional phenomena in the life of the relevant society.
6. Pilns publikāciju saraksts / Full list of publications
6.1 Starptautiski recenzējamos izdevumos / In internationally reviewed publications
"Identitātes daudzbalsība Zviedrijas latviešu dzīvesstāstos" (The multiple voices of identity in
the life stones of Latviansin Sweden), LZA Vēstis, 1997, 51.5/ 6, pp. 112-129.
"Vai reģionālo identitāti var noskaidrot ar tiešiem jautājumiem?" (Can regional identity be
determined through direct questions?), LZA Vēstis, submitted for publication in 2004,
16,500 characters in length.
Pielīdzinātas publikācijām starptautiski recenzējamos izdevumos / Comparable to papers in
interniationally reviewed publications
"Relations Between Personai and Social: Strategies of Everyday Life in the Process of Radical
Social Changes", Pro-Ethnologia, No. 16, Tartu: Estonian National Museum, 2003, pp.
9-19.
"Stāsta dzīve valodā: naratīvās stratēģijas dzīvesstāstos Latvijā" (The life of the story in
language: Narrative strategies in life stories in Latvia), in Dzīvesstāsti vēsturē, kultūrā,
sabiedrībā (Life stories in history, culture., society), collection of papers from an
intemational conference, the public organisation Dzīvesstāsts (accepted for publication in
2003, 46,500 characters in length).
"Kultūras nozīme latviskās identitātes uzturēšanā un pārmantošanā trimdā" (The importance of
culture in the preservation and inheritance of a Latvian identity in emigration), in Trimda,
kultūra, nacionālā identitāte (Emigration, culture, national identity), collection of papers
from an intemational conference, Latvian State Archives (accepted for publication in
2003, 28,300 characters in length).
"Usually Silenced: A Changing World in the Apolitical Life Story", in Jaago, T. (ed.). Life
Histories and Identities. Studies on Oral Histories, Life- and Family Stories, Vol. 2.
individual. Society. Life. Tartu (2002), pp. 204-210.
Grāmatu nodaļas/ Chapters in books
"Patība un sociāli kulturālais konteksts" (One's self and the socio-cultural context), in Zirnīte,
M(ed.). Spogulis (Mirror). Rīga: LUFSI and NMV (2001), pp. 125 -144.
"Dzīvesstāsti mutvārdu vēstures skatījumā" (Life stories from the perspective of oral history), in
Lūse, A. (ed.). Cilvēks. Dzīve. Stāstījums (Human Being, Life, Story). Rīga (2002), pp. 30-36.
"Tavaliselt mahavaikitud. Muutuv maailm apoliitises eluloos", in Jaago, T. Pārimuslik ajalugu.
Koostanud. Tartu (2001), pp. 132-136.
Zinātniskos izdevumos, konferenču tēžu un rakstu krājumos /
In scholarfy publications and in collections of conference theses and papers:
"Eiropas sociologu asociācijas 6. konference" (The 6th conference of the European Sociological
Association), Latvijas Zinātņu Akadēmijas Vēstis, Vol. 58, No. 1, 2004, p. 59.
"Trimdas identitāte dzīvesstāstos" (The identity of emigration in life stories), in Literatūra un
kultūra: process, mijiedarbība, problēmas (Literature and culture: Process, interaction,
problems). Daugavpils: Saule (2004), pp. 19-26,
"Narrated Memories: The Past in the Present", in XIIIth International Oral History Conference
"Memory and Globalization", Conference Proceedings. Rome (2004), submitted for
publication, 19,000 characters in lengih.
"Reflecting experience, expression and understanding", in Book of the Absiracts // The 6 th
Conference of the European Sociological Association, "Aging Societies, New
Sociology". Murcia (Spain) (2003), p. 84.
"Relationships Between Private and Social: The Case Studies of Rural Latvian Life Stories", in
Abstract Book / The 5th Conference of the European Sociological Association, "Visions
and Divisions", Helsinki (2001), p. 18.
"Mutvārdu vēsture Latvijas kultūrtelpā - iestrādes un attīstības tendences" (Oral history in the
cultural space of Latvia - earlv developments and development trends), in Tēžu krājums
// II Pasaules Latviešu Zinātnieku Kongress (Collection of theses from the 2 nd Global
Congress of Latvian Scientists). Rīga (2001), p. 59.
"Atšķirīgu kultūras diskursu saskare, latvietim satiekot latvieti" (The contact of different cultural
discourses when a Latvian meets a Latvian), in Sabiedrība un kultūra (Society and
Culture), Liepāja Pedagogical Academy, Liepāja (2001), pp. 32-41.
"Mutvārdu vēstures seminārs Tartu universitātē" (A seminar about oral historv at Tartu
University, Latvijas Zinātņu Akadēmijas Vēstis, Vol. 54, No. 3/4, 2000, p. 153. Zirnīte,
M and B. Bela-Krūmiņa. "Latvijas un trimdas dzīvesstāstu apvienotās kolekcijas
tapšana" (Preparation of a joint collection of life stories from Latvia and emigration),
collection of conference papers, Latvian State Archives, 2000, pp. 123-128.
"Māja Rīgā - laikā un telpā nosacīts dzīves modelis" (A home in Rīga- a life modei that is
conditional in time and space), in Māja //Pagātnes atmiņas - nākotnes vīzijas (Home memories of the past, visions of the future), collection of papers. Rīga: University of
Latvia, Department of Practical Philosophy (1998).
Presē un populārzinātniskos žurnālos / In the press and in consumer magazines
"Cita vēsture. Varbūt īstā" (A different history, perhaps the real one), Forums, March 26-April 2,
2004, No. 13(95).
"No Līnas Ernas Hermīnes Kuģes dzīvesstāsta" (From the life story of Līna Er na Hermīne
Kuģe), Karogs, No. 2, 2004, pp. 183-193.
"Stāsta dzīve valodā: naratīvās stratēģijas dzīvesstāstos Latvijā" (The life of the story in
language: Narrative strategies in life stories in Latvia), Karogs, No. 10, 2003, pp.
164-173.
"Pretrunā atmiņas modes tendencēm" (In contrast to fashion trends in memory), Forums, 25
April 2003, No. 17(47).
A translation of B. Meierhoff's "What Exactly Do You Want From Us?", Kentaurs XXI, No. 27,
April 2002.
Bela, B. and I. Zandere. "Zelmas dzīvesstāsts" (Zelma's life story), Rīgas Laiks, No. 6, 1999,
pp. 58-60.
"Latvijas likteņstāsti iet pasaulē" (The stories of Latvia's destiny are entering the world), an
annotation to the book by V. Skultāns, The Testimonies of Lives, Diena, 24 April 1998.
"Cilvēks, kurs runāja pie sava kapa" (The person who spoke at his own gravē), Rīgas Laiks, No.
6,1998, pp. 54-57.
"Māja Rīgā - laikā un telpā nosacīts dzīves modelis" (A home in Rīga - a life modei that is
conditional in time and space), Latvijas Vēstnesis, 17 February 1997.
"Savu sakņu izjūta" (Asense of one's own roots), Latvijas Vēstnesis, 15 August 1996.
"Dzīvesstāsta dzimšana" (The birth of a life story), Karogs, No. 8, 1995, pp. 196-204.
6.2. Konferenču saraksts/ List of conferences
February 9,
Ikdienas dzīves stratēģijas sociālo pārmaiņu apstākļos:
2004
padomju laiks Latvijā stāstījumos par dzīvi (Everyday life
strategies under circumstances of social change: The Soviet era in
life stories that are told in Latvia), the 62 nd conference of the
University of Latvia, Sociology Section.
September
Reflecting Experience, Expression and Understanding, the 6th
24, 2003
Conference of the European Sociological Association, Murcia,
Spain.
May 1, 2003
Stāsta dzīve valodā (The life of the story in language), the
international conference Dzīvesstāsti - vēsturē, kultūrā,
sabiedrībā (Life stories in history, culture and society),
University of Latvia, Rīga.
March
14,
Transformation of Cultural and Social Models in Latvia After
2003
1991, at the seminar Prospects for Micro-sociology in the sīudy of
November
Trimdas identitāte dzīvesstāstos (The identity of emigration in
post-Soviet Transformations, Helsinki.
15,2002
life stories), at Ihe intemational conference Emigrācija un
Kultūra {Emigration and Culture), Daugavpils University.
September 1,
Relationships Between Private and Social: Case Studies of
2001
Rural Latvian Life Stories, the 5th Conference of the European
Sociological Association, Helsinki.
August
15,
Mutvārdu vēsture Latvijas kultūrtelpā - iestrādes un attīstības
tendences (Oral history in Ihe culturaj space of Latvia - early
2001
developments and development trends), 2nd Global Congress of
Latvian Scientists, Rīga.
May
19,
Mainīgā sociālā telpa apolitisko sieviešu dzīvesstāstos (The
shifting social space in the life stories of apolitical women), at
2000
the seminar Oral History, Tartu University.
April
14,
2000
Atšķirīgu kultūras diskursu saskare latvietim satiekot latvieti
(The contact of different cultural discourses when a Latvian
meets a Latvian), at Ihe conference Society and Culture,
Liepāja Pedagogical Academy
May 1997
Biogrāfiskā metode sociālās zinātnēs pārejas periodā Latvijā
(The biographic method in the social sciences during the period of
transition in Latvia), at Ihe conference Kultūras attīstība
postkomunistiskajās valstis pārejas periodā (The development of
culture in post-Communist countries during the transition
period), Jūrmala, Latvia.
April1997
"Māja Rīgā - laikā un telpā nosacīts dzīves modelis" (A home in
Rīga - a life modei that is conditional in time and space), at the
conference Māja - pagātnes atmiņa, nākotnes vīzijas (Home memories of the past, visions of the future), Uhiversity of
Latvia.
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SATURS
1. Promocijas darba novitāte ..................................................................................
1
2. Doktora pētījuma teorētiskie un metodoloģiskie aspekti .................................... 2
3. Pārskats par doktora pētījumā iegūtajiem rezultātiem ......................................... 4
3.1. Pārskats par ekspedīciju «Dzīvesstāsts Latvijā 96" ...................................... 5
3.2. Pārskats par biogrāfiskām intervijām kā komunikafiviem notikumiem
3.3. Pārskats par pieredzes stastiemkā mutvārdu tekstiem .................................
6
8
3.4. Pārskats par pagātnes interpretāciju dzīvesstāstos ........................................ 10
4. Galvenie secinājumi ........................................................................................... 12
4.1. Galvenie secinājumi par naratīva analīzes performatīvās pieejas
lietojumu doktora pētījumā ................................................................................ 12
4.1.1. Secinājumi par pieredzes stāstiem kā komunikatīviem notikumiem......... 12
4.1.2. Secinājumi par dzīvesstāstiem kā mutvārdu tekstiem ............................... 13
4.1.3. Secinājumi par dzīvesstāstiem kā vēstījumiem par pagātni ....................... 15
4.2. Galvenie secinājumi par doktora pētījumā lietoto koncepciju par
daudzbalsību dzīvesstāstos .................................................................................. 17
4.2. Galvenie secinājumi metodoloģijas jomā .................................................... 19
5. Pēcvārds .............................................................................................................. 21
CONTENT
1. The innovative aspects of thethesis ...................................................................... 23
2. The theoretical and methodological aspects of the research ................................. 25
3. A summarv oftfie results ofthe research ............................................................... 27
3.1. Areview of the "Life Stories in Latvia 96" expedition ........................ 28
3.2. A review of the biographic interviews as communicative events ......... 29
3.3. A review of experience stories as oral texts ............................................ 31
3.4. Areview of the interpretation of the past in life stories .................... 33
4. Major conclusions ................................................................................................ 36
4.1. Major conclusions about theuse of the performative approach to
analysis of narratives during the doctoral research ....................................... 36
4.1.1. Conclusions about life stories as communicative events .............. 36
4.1.2. Conclusions about life stories as oral texts .................................. 37
4.1.3. Conclusions about life stories as messages about the past ........... 40
4.2. Major conclusions about the concept that was used in the
doctoral research with respect to multiple voices in life stories ..................... 42
4.3. Major conclusions about methodology ................................................. 43
5. Postscript.............................................................................................................. 45
6. Pielikums / Appendix ........................................................................................... 46
6.1. A fu11 bibliography of published and prepared works .......................... 46
6.2. A list of conferences ........................................................................... 49
7. Literatūras saraksts / Bibliography ....................................................................... 51